CHAPTER II.

PASSAGE OF THE RIVER EUPHRATES, AT Beer.

WE quitted our station with the dawn, and going, for about half an hour, over a fertile plain, opened a full view of the Euphrates, winding in its course to the southward.

Descending gradually for an hour more, and going nearly east, over a dry white soil, we came near the water's edge, close by a small hamlet of about twenty dwellings. There was, at this place, a ruined Turkish building, with a domed top and four open arches in its square walls, one on each side; it was probably an old well or fountain, as the tombs of the Mohammedans are mostly enclosed.

We went up from hence to the northward, along the west bank of the river, for another half hour, over a flat shelving land, when we came immediately opposite to Beer, which

stands on the east side of the stream. We halted here for some time, in an extensive burying-ground, near which is a khan, for the accommodation of travellers detained on this side of the river. The dead are transported across the stream for interment, and their graves appeared to occupy a very large portion of the plain.

The transport of the caravan, from one side of the Euphrates to the other, was long and tedious, occupying us till nearly noon. There were six large boats, each about forty feet in length, by ten broad, only two feet high at the stern, and about fifteen feet at the prow. The shape of these boats resembled the half of a gourd, divided longitudinally, and hollowed out within; the head of the fruit representing the head of the boat, and the stem of the fruit its stern. The floor or platform was nearly level, and the side timbers rose almost perpendicularly, or at right angles with the floor ones, being many in number, and of a small size. There was neither keel, stem-piece, nor sternpost; the bottom was formed by planks, nailed beneath the cross timbers of the flooring, which, on reaching near the head of the boat, were bent upwards in a rounding form,

till they reached the stem, generally tapering away there in breadth, and offering an overhanging bow to the stream, while the stern was merely a gradual rising up of the bottom planks, till they were well cleared of the water, when the trunk of a tree was placed across their ends, like a ship's transom, its top being only two feet from the water's edge.

The stern of the boat being presented to the beach, and from the flatness of its bottom, and little draft of water, almost over-hanging the sand, the beasts of burthen got into it with ease, after they were lightened of their loads. Each of these boats carried about two tons of merchandize, besides four camels, a horse or two, three or four asses, and eight or ten passengers, but they were then almost dangerously laden. The crew consisted of four men and two boys; three persons being placed at each extremity, and the cargo and passengers a-midships. Over the high prow went one long oar, formed of the trunk of some slender tree; and this having to be managed by one person, its thickest end remained in-board, while to its other extremity were nailed two flat pieces of plank, for the blade. This oar

was used chiefly as a rudder; and on both bows were smaller oars of the same description, as well as on the quarters, so that they were used either on one side or the other, as occasion required.

When we pushed off from the shore, the lee-oars with regard to the current, or those on the south only, were pulled to impel the boat across the stream; but this was so rapid in its course, as to whirl the boat round four or five times in her passage over, and occasion her to fall at least a quarter of a mile below the point immediately opposite to that from which we started.

We landed on a steep beach, and passed under the arch of one of the buildings close to the water, where we were all detained for examination at the Custom-House, a refinement in which the Turks are inferior to no people in Europe. When this duty was over, we were suffered to pass through the town unmolested; and repairing to a sort of wharf without it, and close to the southern walls, the goods were there landed for examination. This occasioned us another long detention, so that it was nearly evening before all was ended,

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when we went up through the town, and, going out of its eastern gate, encamped close to the walls for the night.

The town of Beer, which is the Birtha of

*

antiquity, is seated on the east bank of the Euphrates, at the upper part of a reach of that river, which runs nearly north and south, and just below a sharp bend of the stream, where it follows that course, after coming from a long reach flowing more from the westward. The river is hereabout the general breadth of the Nile, below the first cataract to the sea. It is considerably larger than the Orontes or the Jordan, and is at least equal to the Thames at Blackfriars-bridge. Its eastern bank being

* D'Anville, Comp. of Anc. Geog. vol. i. p. 426. 8vo. Rauwolf says, that the Euphrates, when he crossed it at Beer, about the year 1575, was a mile broad; Maundrell, that it was as broad, in his time, as the Thames at London. When Otter crossed it, in 1734, its breadth, according to his conjecture, exceeded not two hundred common paces; though lower down, upon the plain, it spread, he observes, to the width of five or six hundred pacés, at the time of its increase. Travels, vol. i. p. 108— 112. The same traveller mentions a tradition, which ascribes the building the fortress of Beer to Alexander the Great; and adds, that there were, in his time, three other remarkable fortresses in the neighbourhood. Nedgem, to the east; Souroudge, to the north-east; and Kalai-Roum,

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